This handbook defines, explains and gives guidance for resource conservation planning. To provide more detailed guidelines, some supplemental handbook material may be required at the state level; such supplements are to be kept to a minimum and are to adhere to national policy.

The information and guidelines in this handbook constitute basic Soil Conservation Service (SCS) policy and procedures for assisting ranchers, groups, organizations, units of government, and others in planning and applying resource conservation programs on rangeland and other native grazing land.

This manual defines, explains, and gives guidance for resource conservation planning and implementation.

The authors draw on their extensive “hands-on” experience to provide an essential textbook for practitioners, students, or researchers of conservation, natural resource management, or landscape planning and architecture. This title provides the methods, tools, approaches, and case studies to plan a nature conservation project from inception to implementation and monitoring and evaluation. It draws on a wide range of disciplines and literature from conservation biology, landscape architecture, and land-use planning to decision science, natural resource economics, and sustainability. The book's primary audience is conservation scientists, planners, and practitioners in nongovernmental organizations; natural resource agency biologists and scientists; and professional landscape architects and land-use planners in both developed and developing nations throughout the world. With decades of experience as conservation planners, the authors have combined the fields of spatial planning (establishing priority places for conservation) and strategic planning into one overall planning approach. The book's underlying philosophy is that effective planning is really about making tough choices of where to allocate resources to achieve the conservation outcomes of a project, program, or conservation initiative.

February issue includes Appendix entitled Directory of United States Government periodicals and subscription publications; September issue includes List of depository libraries; June and December issues include semiannual index

For many years farmers and ranchers have been building ponds for livestock water and for irrigation. By 1980 more than 2.1 million ponds had been built in the United States by land users on privately owned land. More will be needed in the future. The demand for water has increased tremendously in recent years, and ponds are one of the most reliable and economical sources of water. Ponds are now serving a variety of purposes, including water for livestock and for irrigation, fish production, field and orchard spraying, fire protection, energy conservation, wildlife habitat, recreation, erosion control, and landscape improvement. This handbook describes embankment and excavated ponds and outlines the requirements for building each. The information comes from the field experience and observation of land users, engineers, conservationists, and other specialists.